The Monday After: Book relates history of leisure time in Stark

Monday

Dec 2, 2013 at 9:00 AM

Amusement parks. Social clubs. Cultural organizations. Athletic fields. Theaters and opera houses. Hotels and restaurants. Customers' favorite stores. Circuses and other celebrations. Divided into chapters that detail such topics, more than 200 photos in the new book, “Canton Entertainment” by Kimberly Kenney, picture residents of Stark County finding ways to have fun.

Divided into chapters that detail such topics, more than 200 photos in the new book, "Canton Entertainment" by Kimberly Kenney, picture residents of Stark County finding ways to have fun.

The images span decades and split themselves, for example, between photographs that recall for older Cantonians their beloved Meyers Lake Amusement Park and pictures that remind younger area residents of the more recent Mother Gooseland. Both entertainment venues, of course, are gone.

"They're examples of places that people enjoy, that they think are always going to be around," said Kenney, "but they disappear."

EXHIBIT TO BOOK

The photo text was inspired by images and information that Kenney included in an exhibit last year — called "That's Entertainment" — in the Keller Gallery at Wm. McKinley Presidential Library & Museum, where she is curator.

To supplement images in the museum's collection, Kenney solicited photographs from Stark County residents.

"The response to that exhibit was tremendous," said Kenney, who noted that photos and text in displays "highlighted the many different ways people have had fun."

Many of those photographs from the exhibit, along with additional pictures from the museum's collection, made their way into Kenney's book, which is part of Arcadia Publishing's "Images of America" series.

"The Images of America series celebrates the history of neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the country," the publisher explains. "Using archival photographs, each title presents the distinctive stories from the past that shape the character of the community today."

Entertainment spots pictured in Kenney's book clearly give a vivid glimpse of the city in its past.

SCREENS AMONG STOREFRONTS

Downtown Canton is abundantly pictured in "Canton Entertainment."

"Some of my favorite photographs are the ones that show downtown street with signs for all the shops," said Kenney. "Those are very nostalgic, letting people see the city when downtown was bustling with shoppers and theatergoers. I think some people will be surprised by the number of stores that were there. And they'll be surprised by the number of theaters that were downtown."

The latter, for the most part, have been lost. The Loew's. The Strand. The Ohio. The Orpheum. The State.

"We only have the Palace left. All the rest of them are gone."

In addition to their nostalgic appeal, the images in "Canton Entertainment" have historical value, Kenney said. "Taken together, they show people what we looked like back in the day, if they weren't here or when they were too young to remember."

One of the most difficult sections of the book to illustrate was the one devoted to dining out, the curator noted. While an abundance of images capture one of this and any other area's most popular forms of entertainment — shopping — few pictures remain of the restaurants where residents went to eat during or after their shopping sprees.

Advertisements and menus bring those fondly remembered restaurants back to life. But the eating out itself is lost to memory, said Kenney.

"People don't take many pictures of themselves inside of restaurants."